GOOD FRIDAY 2009 

I.        "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."

What are the first words out of our mouths when we are sinned against, especially when we are seriously harmed? “Damn you!” “I hope you get yours!”

Jesus prays for forgiveness. And then, He fulfills His prayer by offering Himself to be crucified to pay for our sins. How unlike us He is! How we need Him and the forgiveness for which He prayed and died!

Thank your Lord for His prayer. You now need never doubt that God forgives you, for His Son prayed for this and died for this. God will never reject His Son’s prayer for sinners and death for sinners. Now you can go out and forgive as you have been forgiven. 

II.       "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

His promise flies in the face of the obvious. He promises life in paradise while enduring death and hell. He holds forth eternal good to one dying for his evil crimes. How can Jesus offer paradise to a criminal?

He offers paradise only to criminals. The man confesses his sin and the deservedness of his punishment. But, above all he confesses Jesus as Lord and asks for His mercy.

You cannot receive the blessedness of paradise if you will not admit that you deserve hell. There will be no hell, however, but only paradise for those who confess Jesus to be their Savior from sin. 

III.      “Woman, behold your son!"…"Behold your mother!"

Christ gives His mother into the care of John. He will serve His Lord by serving His mother.

Jesus gives us to each other. There must be no more sitting apart, no leaving here without knowing or caring about each other. Christ’s death binds us together as one. We are one through our baptism into His death and resurrection; we all share of His blood that He shed for our salvation.

Do you want to serve your Lord? Then serve one another. Jesus offers Himself to you in your neighbor. 

IV.         "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" "My God, My God, why have You forsaken  Me?"

How can God forsake God? How can God the Father turn His back on God the Son, with whom He is of one essence and being?

How easily we sin. How lightly we take sin! And yet, sin tears God apart, as it tears our Lord apart in body and soul. It’s punishment of death will also tear your soul from your body and cause your loved ones to cry out in grief.

Lord, forgive us for our foolishness, our ignorance, our stupidity, and our laughing at sin and evil! Forgive us! He does. He bears our sin and offers Himself to its punishment and destruction in our place, for He loves us. He will never forsake us. 

V.      “I thirst.”

There was more than simple thirst behind this request. Psalm 69 says, “They gave me gall for food; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” To fulfill one small passage out of the thousands of passages in the Bible, Jesus speaks these words.

He knows God’s words. Do you make the effort to do so? He follows every one of God’s words. Do you even try, or care? We should be ashamed of how little value we place upon the great and eternal treasure which is God’s Word.

Our Savior treasures and keeps every single word of the Bible – and all for us. His thirst that we be good and holy and filled with good works takes Him through the Bible and to the cross. 

VI.     "It is finished!”…"Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit."

Jesus could not be in His Father’s presence if He were still filled with sin. His prayer would not even be heard. But, it is finished! Sin’s price has been paid, its threat of hell vanquished, its burden of guilt removed! Jesus is again God’s beloved Son and is in His Father’s care.

And, because of Jesus, so are we. “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed,” God promises in Isaiah 53. We are healed! “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ…”

God has been reconciled, and He is again our Father. Now we may live in confidence, with Christ’s words on our lips. In Jesus our lives are in the hands, not of an angry and threatening God, one who takes note of every disobedience, every unkind and judgmental thought, but of a heavenly Father who loves us forever.